


Like I Remember You

by sorrens



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Heavy Angst, Human Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley, I'm Sorry, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Post-Apocalypse, References to Hamlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-07 15:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20311609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrens/pseuds/sorrens
Summary: What if Aziraphale's punishment from Heaven was forgetting Crowley? Or, that time when Aziraphale willingly sold a book and it broke the customer's heart.





	1. Chapter 1

There was a slight shift in the fabric of reality, the day that an antique bookshop in Soho sold its first book.

Well, the first book that the owner had willingly parted with, but he wasn’t to know that.

He didn’t know much, really.

The day started in all respects like a typical weekday.

Aziraphale awoke to the sound of yelling from the street below. He didn’t bother glancing out the window as he rolled out of bed. A typical weekday in Soho. For the briefest of seconds, the man was disorientated, and the world spun before him as a flood of memories accosted him.

Aziraphale. What a strange, stuffy, biblical name. He must have shortened it to something less pretentious at some point. Oh, yes, in grade school he’d gone by Zira. It had followed him in to adulthood.

_Adulthood._ He dragged himself in to the bathroom and inspected the face in the mirror.

Between the vague memory of being called “Zira,” years ago, there must have been another thirty years of… _something_. Living? Is it living if it didn’t make enough of an impression to make it to your long term memory. He shrugged and let out a weak laugh that seemed to only further distanced himself from the body he was inhabiting. Inhabiting, what an odd way to think about it.

As he distracted himself making tea in his run down kitchen, things began to click in to place. Humans are creatures of habit and, through the small ritual of making a cup of tea, Zira settled back in to his routine. Like clockwork he finished breakfast, returned back upstairs to have a shower, dressed before checking the time (8:55) and spent a hurried few minutes trying to make his bowtie sit flat. For some reason, this last part of his morning routine felt the most ingrained, despite being inherently valanced by frustration.

He wound up the blinds and unlocked the shop door at 8:59, beaming warmly at the mess of commuters rushing past.

He took up his station behind the counter and waited for the rush.

The rush didn’t come.

Now it was 9:15.

Zira didn’t want to seem impudent but he had a treasure trove in his possession. The lack of customers was making him somewhat impatient. He tried to recall how the shop had been fairing the last few weeks. Had trade been a bit slow? He cursed his inability to recall anything and dug around in a desk drawer until he came across his ledger. Despite being in the top drawer, it must be an old record.

The book was incomplete, as one might expect a current record, but it seemed to indicate he’d sold his last book on November 3rd 2016:

_1_ _ st _ _ Edition Collection of the Works of Christina Rossetti. _

There was a little entry in the comments section, in his neat cursive: _Customer wanted to bring her grandmother her favourite poems whilst she was in the hospital. Regrettable sale, but for the best._

Now Zira loved books as much as the next bibliophile. He was sure he had his favourites, and was able to recollect a few. He remembered enough to know that he was largely indifferent to Rossetti’s works, how on earth was making a sale “_regrettable_”?

* * *

He punched a few worn keys on the antique register and the drawer popped open with a chime. Incidentally, this chime coincided with a customer slinking through the bookshop’s door. For the bookseller, their presence went unnoticed for the time being.

“What in heaven’s name?”

The till was bare.

A number of thoughts quickly jostled for his immediate attention.

The first, and the loudest, screamed that he’d been robbed in the night and he should call the police now.

A more rational part took over, and he noticed the thin layer of dust that coated the register.

Crouching down, the man observed the same across the countertop, with the recently disturbed particles dancing in the shaft of sunlight that had crept in through the open door—

“Oh, sorry, dear boy. I didn’t notice you there.” Perhaps a little to eager at the sight of a customer, Zira hurried out from behind the counter to meet the man, who refused to look up from the collection he was browsing.

“Did you need help finding anything?” Zira offered, twisting his hands together nervously. It was something about the customer’s aura that had set him on edge.

“No,” the voice sounded almost disappointed, and Zira returned to his desk wondering if he could have somehow phrased it differently.

He knew that some people expected booksellers and librarians alike to have that sixth sense, to anticipate what book you want, what book you need, before you even speak. He got the sense that he’d never quite got knack for it, because he surveyed the customer clad in black, lanky, with a pair of obnoxious dark glasses perched on his face and his senses returned,

well,

nothing.

If he were pressed to describe it, he’d say it was like static in his brain, or a scribble drawn on paper, there was no beginning nor end to his thoughts and it was exhausting to even consider trying to pin them down.

He went back to inspecting his register and quickly forgot the customer was still there, as if his brain had automatically rejected the man’s existence. It was only when a shadow crept across the counter that Zira realised there was someone there.

“Oh, hello. Sorry, didn’t see you come in.” There was a man with a shock of red hair standing in front of him, eyes obscured by sunglasses, clutching a book to his chest.

“That’s okay,” the man’s voice cracked slightly. He put the book down on the counter.

“I don’t suppose you want to sell that?”

Zira gently picked up the copy of Hamlet.

“Ah, yes, my favourite of all of his works.”

“Really?” The man’s eyebrows raised slightly. “How come?”

That was a very good question, that Zira didn’t quite know the answer to.

“I don’t know, just drawn to it.”

The man nodded, raising a hand to brush under his eyes.

“Oh, dear. Sorry, it’s the dust, isn’t it? I’ve just realised that it’s everywhere. Don’t know what I’ve been doing these last few weeks.” Zira paused. “The last few years, actually.” He pursed his lips and surveyed the shop, as if it held the answer. In his distraction, he once again nearly forgot the existence of his customer, but was brought back to earth by a loud sniff from the man.

“Yes, I’ll get this bagged up for you.” He fussed around and, why didn’t he have any bags behind the counter? When he straightened up the man had taken off his sunglasses, eyes watering slightly but _oh_

His eyes were deep like pools of honey, and wide, and expressive, and so painfully sad. For a second, as they made eye contact, maybe there was a glimmer of hope breaking through, vanishing the instant Zira spoke again.

“You have lovely eyes. Quite unique, I must say.” He handed the man’s purchase over, which he took with the air of being handed marching orders.

“But are you alright?” He glanced worriedly at the man, who seemed to be crumbling by the second in front of him.

“Oh,” the man huffed, and hastily wiped a fresh round of tears. “Sorry, just a bad breakup.”

He fished around in his wallet for fifty pounds, handing it to the bookseller in a way that their hands brushed slightly.

“It was his favourite.” He held up the book halfheartedly. “Just something to remember him by, you know?”

Zira frowned.

“It sounds like you still care a lot for this man, are you sure you can’t make things work?”

The man’s face cracked in to a sad smile.

“Oh, I wish Angel. I wish.” He tucked the book under his jacket and, after a sweeping glance of the bookseller and a sharp intake of breath, he exited the store.

Zira felt sad for a few minutes, but after a few seconds he couldn’t quite remember why. Before he’d got to his ledger, he’d all but forgotten he’d sold that copy of Hamlet. The fifty pound note lay forgotten somewhere. He closed the shop at 5pm on the dot, lamenting that he hadn’t had a single customer that day.

* * *

The customer that the shop hadn’t had was still sitting in his antique Bentley across the road, steadily accumulating parking tickets. He watched the bookseller carefully turn the sign to “Closed” and roll down the blinds. The purchase that didn’t-quite-happen was propped open on the steering wheel at the title page. In scrawling handwriting the first edition was dedicated:

_“To my angel, miracle accomplished! Enjoy. — C”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale confronts the man who's been frequenting his bookshop and Crowley falls apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm soft, okay? Based on the lovely comments on Chapter 1, I've written an angst ridden but still hopeful ending as a sort of compromise for tearing your hearts to pieces. I hope you hate me a little bit less ;)

⁂

Aziraphale wasn’t paranoid. No. It was just a general street sense that came with decades of living in Soho and dealing with men in black suits.

Sometime in late Autumn, he became aware that he was being followed. Not stalked, heavens no, that was a bit _too_ strong of a word. If Aziraphale had any aptitude in retail, he probably would’ve just picked the man as a loyal customer, but the man in the dark glasses came in to his shop almost weekly and bought nothing and lingered.

The bookseller was a strong advocate of lingering in book stores, it was basically what they were invented for. He didn’t think of his job as a shopkeeper so much as a someone who spent hours surrounded by books and sometimes got reimbursed for it. But this man, thin hips and sauntering gait, had piqued Aziraphale’s attention and his frequent presence had become… unsettling.

Aziraphale was nothing if not perceptive and the man’s affect was the most disconcerting thing about him. Not the snake skin boots, or the way he sometimes slurred his S’s when talking to the bookseller, or the way his stately black Bentley had been parked in a no standing zone outside Aziraphale’s window and nobody but the bookseller seemed to notice.

No. Sadness rolled off him in waves that threatened to suck Aziraphale in to their riptide. He looked lonely, shoulders hunched, face pained and Aziraphale sensed it was not a loneliness that could be remedied by a well-chosen book. No, this was loss in its most devastating form. So it was no surprise that the man browsed his shelves with a vague disinterest, but that opened up a line of questioning that had plagued Aziraphale each time the man came through the door.

Why _was_ he here, of all places?

That’s how he settled on the working hypothesis that this was an elaborate attempt to infiltrate and buy out his book shop. Sure, the man’s jeans were a bit too tight and his gait a bit too casual to be part of the mob, but maybe they were branching out with their recruits. Somehow, like he suspected (but couldn’t quite remember) he’d done many times before, he was going to scare the scoundrel away, getting him to take a message back to whoever he was working for that Aziraphale was not interested in selling. No matter how many bones they threatened to break.

“Good Evening,” Crowley, who’d been staring fixedly at the same shelf for upward of five minutes, started when he heard the bookseller’s voice. Aziraphale didn’t talk to him. Usually the man loitered around the counter, sometimes flicking worried glances in the demon’s direction, like he wished for nothing more than the man to leave. Crowley had seen the telltale signs of the the bookkeeper’s anxiety and frustration at this repeat customer, and had steeled himself for the moment when Aziraphale asked him to move along. Apparently this was it.

“Uh, Hi.” Crowley fidgeted with his sunglasses nervously as his old friend approached. His sunglasses had the added benefit of not only shielding his obscure eyes from the human, but also allowed him to watch Aziraphale in secret whilst he pretending to be browsing. It also hid the pained expression that threatened to overtake his face. It also allowed him to cry if he wanted to. The human body was stupid and weak like that.

“I would like you to tell your… boss, that I’m not interested in selling. Better to cut to the chase rather than you spend another month staking out the place trying to work out how to convince me to sell. I won’t.”

The red-haired man looked taken aback, and a slight smile played at his lips.

Aziraphale frowned. Was this supposed to be an intimidation tactic? But then the man burst out in raucous laughter.

“Not worry Angel, my employer hasn’t got any interest in a bookstore.”

_Shit_, he hadn’t meant to let that endearment slip out, but Aziraphale was preoccupied with worry.

“So what is it? Do they want money? Do they want to kidnap me? I daresay that’s a lot of effort to capture a nobody like me. What do you want?” He demanded angrily.

Crowley stepped back and raised his hands in surrender.

“What makes you think I want any of that. Why can’t I just be a customer? A regular who likes your shop?” _Who likes you. Misses you._

“A regular.” Aziraphale frowned, trying to make sense of it. “That’s all very well but you don’t actually look at the books much. It’s kind of creepy.” He added as an afterthought.

The man’s cheeks coloured and a layer of his cool demeanour seemed to slip off.

“Crowley,” he held out his hand.

Aziraphale shook it, still frowning.

“You got me. I’m not much of a reader.” The man shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “But, well… I was just…” he seemed to be looking everywhere but Aziraphale. Hand scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably.

“Yes,” prompted Aziraphale, growing impatient.

“I came here for you.” Crowley stared at the ground, as if hoping it would swallow him up and take him straight back to hell. Anywhere was better than this.

There was a silence.

Of course the angel, blindly oblivious in both angelic and human form, couldn’t quite add things up.

“What do you mean?”

Crowley sighed. This wasn’t how he expected to reacquaint himself with the angel. In fact, he was hanging around in hopes of a miracle, where the man would suddenly spot the demon prowling the aisles and recognise him and it was all back to normal.

“I mean, ngk, I mean… I think you’re cute and I was trying to work up the nerve to talk to you.”

_Satan and above, when did he turn in to a thirteen year old girl? _

His cheeks burned red and he couldn’t quite meet Aziraphale’s eye. It was kind of a lie, his reason of being there, but also there was enough truth in it that in any other circumstance Crowley would be very uncomfortable admitting such things to his friend. But this wasn’t his friend. This was a human bookseller in Soho who dressed straight out of the 19th century despite never having been there. Who had a fondness for Shakespeare and Wilde as if, in a past life, they were the dearest of friends to the man. Who was resigned to spending the next couple of decades fiercely defending his small shop from investors and had never thought twice about making an effort in any other aspect of his life.

Certainly not romantically.

To Crowley’s surprise, Aziraphale ducked his head bashfully and gave the man a small smile. _Was it really this easy?_ Crowley’s heart soared.

“I must admit I did feel… drawn… to you from the moment you set foot in my store. Although it’s hard to get to know a man who’s always hiding behind those blasted glasses.” Aziraphale, though aware he was likely being too forward, leaned forward to take off the man’s sunglasses.

“No,” Crowley grabbed his wrist. “Ah, eye condition. Gotta wear them.”

Aziraphale lowered his hand, skin tingling from the other’s touch and nodded understandably.

“Sorry, dear boy, don’t know what got in to me.” He laughed slightly. “Feels like I’ve known you for a while. Maybe in a past life…”

“Maybe,” Crowley echoed as Aziraphale led the two towards his living room.

“Would you like a drink?” There was the Aziraphale he’d known bleeding through. A stranger shows up and is painfully embarrassingly open with the man and suddenly the two were sharing drinks.

“Of course Angel.” Crowley slumped on the couch he used to occupy, limbs splayed. The bookseller hesitated, catching the affection in his voice and watching the man rest in the chair as if it were moulded for him. Aziraphale made a small hum of acknowledgment and went out to his backroom to find a nice vintage.

As he picked through his cabinet, he thought back to Crowley. His stomach did a little backflip, the man had been working up the courage to talk to him for a month? He seemed charismatic and intelligent, if not a little bit odd. Aziraphale didn’t have a type so to speak but if he had to describe the man in his lounge room he’d gravitate towards “devastatingly handsome”. In fact, he couldn’t even quite remember ever being in a relationship. Did he have a preference for males? Surely this was something he should have figured out by now, he was bordering on fifty (he suspected, he’d have to check his licence later to remember his actual birth date maybe).

He resolved to throw all of the questions out the window for the time being, and there was a great many of them.

In that moment, Aziraphale was hit with the startling realisation that his life just didn’t add up.

Now he was about to have drinks with some random off the street and he felt like his soul was about to spill over.

It was an unconscious decision in a time of personal crisis, when Aziraphale returned to the sitting room, he began to vent his concerns to Crowley.

“I’m not quite sure who I am.” He confessed. Crowley frowned and took a sip of his wine. At least he wasn’t running for the hills. Aziraphale had long associated identity crises as the beginning of a slow descent in to insanity. Maybe he had early onset Dementia? He mentally filed that thought for later follow up, lamenting that if it were in fact the case it was unlikely there would be a later follow up. Something about his companion’s expression softened slightly, an extraordinary feat for someone hidden behind sunglasses, and that made Aziraphale all the more trusting of the man.

“How so?” Crowley stubbornly pushed down the flicker of hope that was rising in his chest.

“I don’t feel like me.” Aziraphale sighed and peered in to his glass intently as if it held the answers. This gave Crowley an idea.

A bad idea, even by his standards, but desperate times called for copious amounts of alcohol.

⁂

**Crowley’s terrible-no-good-plan went something like this**: He was going to get Aziraphale ridiculously drunk and then tell him everything that had happened up to and after armageddon’t, including the angel’s fate, and then he was going to hope that it somehow reactivated the suppressed neural networks in the man’s brain and magically revived his lost memory. (Crowley had read half of a neuroscience paper 5 years ago and tended to think of himself as a bit of an expert in these kind of things as a result.)

⁂

They were a bottle and a half deep in some Australian red and Crowley was giddily talking about the ducks in St James’ park.

“I’ve named them all, you see. They have different personalities. Uriel, she’s a right bastard—“

“Hang on,” Aziraphale cut him off. “How can a duck be a bastard?”

Crowley shrugged and topped up his glass. “Oh angel, if you meet her, you’ll agree with me.”

“Why do you call me that?” Aziraphale paused. “Angel, I mean. Where did you get that from?”

Crowley blustered.

“Oh, well, you just look like an angel. Your little halo of curls, and the way you dress, and you just seem to glow. Believe me, you light up a room, it’s ethereal.” Crowley’s voice cracked.

Aziraphale chuckled softly and edged closer to the demon.

‘You really mean that?”

“Of course I do. Why would I lie to you?”

“Yes, why would you…” Aziraphale trailed off, deep in thought.

In the ensuing silence, Crowley hastily tried to wipe the tears from under his eyes before the other saw them. Failing miserably.

“What’s wrong?” Aziraphale kept forward and knelt before the man.

“Nothing, just being stupid.” Crowley waved his hand away.

“I hardly think so.” Aziraphale said firmly. “I picked up on it the moment you set foot in here. You’ve lost someone, something. You’re broken. I only wish you could tell me. I want to be able to help heal you.”

Crowley’s body curled in on itself, wracked with sobs. No, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. But the alcohol and that damn angelic gaze had worn down his hardened exterior.

“He was just, just, always there. I didn’t get to tell him. Then he was gone.”

Aziraphale rubbed soothing circles on the man’s back.

“Sorry if this is a bit much, you don’t have to answer. Did he pass away?”

Crowley’s body stilled.

“I don’t know. All I know is that he’s gone.”

It was an odd situation, thought Aziraphale, the man was obviously distressed and not completely making sense. He didn’t push the matter further, just waiting until Crowley drew a trembling breath and began to talk.

“I was so stupid, I took us for granted. I just assumed that he’d always be around, the same way I was always showing up and getting him out of ridiculous situations.”

“You couldn’t know that he’d leave.” The bookseller said gently. “He probably had his reasons,”

Crowley gulped.

“But he didn’t choose to leave! He didn’t get a choice. He deserved the world and I should have given it to him, and more, and yet I let him slip through my fingers and fade in to obscurity. I can’t help but think that there was something more I could have done. I was always there for him and then, the one moment I’m not…” he trailed off bitterly.

Aziraphale rose up and sat beside the cowering man, so close that their thighs brushed.

“I’m sure he knew how you felt. I don’t think he’d want to you take the blame for how things ended up.”

“Really?”

“If it were me, I certainly wouldn’t, dear boy.”

Crowley’s face twisted in pain. Their faces were so close Crowley could feel the man’s breath on his cheek. He briefly reminded his body to breathe too, before getting lost in the moment. Aziraphale’s eyes were misty with tears and of course this man was so invested in Crowley’s tale of woe; He was an angel regardless of heavenly status or lack thereof.

Crowley wasn’t sure why he did it — impulses and all — he took off his sunglasses like he had once all those weeks ago.

Only this time there was only inches between the two of them. It was as close as the demon could come to baring a soul that he arguably didn't have.

Aziraphale was so close. Crowley could see the hesitation as amber eyes met blue.

But there was no recoil.

No horror or confusion or loud exclamation.

Aziraphale simply looked captivated.

“_Oh_,” he raised a hand to Crowley’s cheek. “They’re beautiful.”

Crowley held his breath as what could have been a flitter of recognition crossed the angel’s face.

He frowned and dropped his hand suddenly, as if burnt.

Pieces of a puzzle he wasn’t aware he’d been solving were slowly falling in to place.

“Was it me?” He asked tentatively. “Did I do this to you? Is that why you’re here?”

Crowley’s eyes flashed with alarm.

“No, no, you didn’t do this. There’s nothing to be done. But…” he heaved a sigh. “Yes, I want you to remember me, Angel. The way you look at me like I’m a stranger to you is tearing me up inside.”

Aziraphale bit his lip, on the verge of tears, eyes moving back and forth as he scoured for memories of the man before him.

“I can’t. I’m sorry, I really don’t know who you are.” He looked devastated.

Crowley nodded and turned away so that the man couldn’t see the disappointment in his face.

“But,” Crowley felt the human take his hand, squeezing it tightly. “I’d really like to start again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Vera Blue song of the same name. I challenge you to listen to it whilst reading this fic and not cry.
> 
> I'm on Tumblr at [@sorrens](https://sorrens.tumblr.com)
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please feel free to browse my other Good Omens fics. I've written a few AUs, some angst, some crack, some questionable use of internet humour, basically ineffable husbands in many flavours.


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